Thursday, 21 November 2013

TweetI was a member
of the housing committee of what was at the time the Vale of Glamorgan Borough
Council when the Thatcher government introduced the so-called “right to buy”
legislation. It was a piece of
legislation about which I have always been rather ambivalent.

On the one
hand, it was clear from the outset that what was a popular and populist policy
in the short term would lead to a shortage of affordable houses to rent in the
longer term – an outcome exacerbated both by the generous discounts on offer
and the rule that the capital receipts could not be used to build new houses.And one of the motives behind the policy was
always to take the state – even the local state in the form of local councils –
out of housing completely.It was a
piece of dogma more than anything else.

On the other
hand, as someone who was also at the time living in a council house with his
parents I also
understood why so many tenants wanted to be able to buy their homes.Thatcher, for all her faults, seemed to
understand the difference between houses and homes in a way that many others in
her own party – to say nothing of those in other parties – did not.

It was never
simply about becoming a property owner or getting a foot on the housing ladder;
it was about enjoying the use of the home without the restrictions which
council tenancies often included.People
tend to forget how paternalistic the attitude of many councils was at that time
towards their tenants.

The suggestion
recently by the Tories in Wales that they would enable councils once again to
build significant numbers of council homes, and would also amend the right to
buy legislation in such a way as to ensure that a new home was built for every
one sold, is something of a welcome conversion.There is no sign however that they have really thought through the
implications.

It’s an
eye-catching headline policy, but I haven’t seen the financial detail which
explains how you bridge the gap between the reduced price at which an existing
house is sold and the higher price at which a new one would be built.Nor am I entirely convinced that there is not
still an ideological aversion to council ownership of homes amongst the party’s
leaders, even if the Welsh branch is saying something different (or perhaps
Andrew RT Davies’ bosses simply haven’t noticed his statement yet).But since, in practice, the probability that
they will ever be in a position to implement this policy in Wales is so remote,
I guess it’s not something we need particularly to worry about.